Last Seen

by Lucy Clarke

  ‘And how are you, Sarah?’ he says, a dark figure in the doorway.

  I’ve never been alone with Ross Wayman. I only know him from the short exchanges we have on the sandbank ferry where we talk about the weather, the tides, Jacob’s upcoming shifts.

  When I say nothing, Ross Wayman adds, ‘It must be a very distressing time for you and Nick.’

  I murmur a sound of agreement.

  ‘If you don’t mind me saying, this summer on the ferry … I felt Jacob wasn’t in a very good way …’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘He was quieter. No chitchat with the customers. A short fuse. Missed a couple of shifts, too. No apology, just a shrug. I don’t know if he said, but he was on a warning. Turned up stoned a couple of weeks back. Denied it of course, but I’m no idiot. Said it was his last chance before I got another kid to help.’

  I shake my head. I had no idea. ‘He never said.’

  ‘Course he didn’t. You’re only his mother.’

  I know this is just a quip, but somehow it feels like an accusation.

  ‘Anyway, I’m only telling you because when I was a young man his age, I acted up plenty. Felt like I had the weight of the world on my shoulders. I like to think Jacob’s just gone to ground, is taking some time out. That he’ll be back.’

  I’m facing the bookcase, tears hot in my eyes. ‘Thank you,’ I say quietly, unsure how I feel. I’m grateful to hear that Ross Wayman believes Jacob is unharmed – and yet, I feel uncomfortable that this man, who I hardly know, understands more about my son’s state of mind than I do.

  I climb down from Isla’s sofa, the torch beam dropping to my side.

  ‘No luck with the book?’

  ‘Oh. No. Couldn’t see it.’

  ‘Probably best to search again in the daylight.’

  I nod.

  He takes the torch from me and directs the beam over the door while I lock up the hut. Then he bids me goodnight.

  I return to my beach hut, where Nick still sleeps. The candle has burned almost to the wick; I watch the flame make its final dance, before the light finally shrinks, dies.

  27. ISLA

  Summer 2013

  I struck a single match, cupping it carefully in my hands and dipping it into the base of the kindling. The young flames danced and stretched as I blew gently on them. Soon the thinnest twigs had set alight and I sat back in the cool sand, looping my arms around my knees.

  It had always been a point of pride to light a fire with a single match. My mother had taught me how to find the best materials, arranging them in just the right shape so that the first flame can feed on the oxygen. We used to light fires in our garden on dry evenings, sipping peppermint tea with thick blankets draped around our shoulders. Living outside-in, my mother used to call it. That was the mark of a good life, in her book – spending as much time as possible outside.

  With my back to the beach huts, all that lay ahead was the glow of the fire and the grey-blue blanket of sea. It was high tide and small waves folded on to the powder-dry sand. Stretching my legs towards the fire, I felt the first blush of heat against my bare toes. A sand flea leaped away from the flames, disappearing into the shadows.

  ‘Thought it was you.’

  I started, swinging round and finding Nick standing at the edge of the fire. ‘Want company?’ he asked, holding up a bottle of wine and two glasses.

  ‘Sure.’

  Nick sat beside me and poured two glasses of red. He’d always had a lovely way of doing things for me without being asked, as if he knew exactly what I needed.

  ‘Sarah in bed?’ I asked, taking the wine. Without seeing the label, I knew Nick would be drinking Châteauneuf-du-Pape; he opened a bottle every Friday to welcome in the weekend.

  He nodded, but didn’t say anything, and I sensed there might have been an argument. I didn’t ask. It was safer not to know the inner workings of their marriage.

  He settled his glass in the sand and leant back, stretching out his neck. ‘God, it’s nice to be at the beach.’

  ‘Tough week?’

  ‘No more than usual.’ With his gaze on the water he said, ‘Do you remember that first summer? Wasn’t everything easy back then? We’d make a fire and stay out all evening, drinking rum and cokes, rolling into bed at dawn.’

  ‘Or rowing over to the pub in that bloody awful boat you salvaged – which gave me splinters in my thighs.’

  ‘Only because your dresses were so short!’

  I smacked his arm and he laughed.

  ‘They were good times, weren’t they?’

  I nodded.

  Then he shook his head, as if he didn’t want to even think about it. ‘Anyway. What about you? How are you, Isla Berry?’

  I smiled. When we were dating he used to call me by my full name, as if he found something sweet about the pairing of the two words. I picked up a stick and poked at the fire, rolling one of the branches into the centre of the flames. Sparks lifted, weaving into the night.

  How was I? If Marley had been alive, he’d have been beside me, perhaps toasting marshmallows in the flames, watching the edges of them bubble and caramelize into a charred, sweet crust. ‘I don’t know how to answer that question any more.’

  ‘Answer it honestly.’

  I looked at him. ‘You sure?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Okay.’ I took a deep breath. ‘There’s a Marley-shaped hole in my life – and it doesn’t get any smaller. I don’t think I want it to get smaller. It’ll be three years this summer – but I miss him just as fiercely.’

  ‘Does it make it harder, being here?’

  I drew in a breath, thinking about the question. ‘Yes … and no. I feel closest to him here. He loved it, didn’t he? The beach, the bird life, lying in the hut listening to rain, playing cards with Jacob, crabbing on the jetty … all of it.’ I took a drink of wine, then planted the glass in the sand. ‘But it’s harder too because the sea is right there. Right in front of my fucking eyes, all day, every day. Taunting me. I want to trawl it. I want him out of it, back with me.’

  Nick didn’t say anything. He just waited.

  ‘You know what scares me? I feel like I’m losing who I am. I’m sure I used to be someone braver than this; someone who saw possibility everywhere. But now … I don’t know … it’s like the world’s lost its colour, lost its appeal. I don’t seem to have any … energy.’ I shook my head sharply. ‘Shit, listen to me. Sorry. You don’t need this.’ I picked up my wine, sand sprinkling across my lap, and drained the glass.

  Nick reached across with the bottle and refilled it. ‘Isla, you’re still you.’

  I turned, looked at him through the darkness.

  ‘You lost your mum at nineteen – but you didn’t let it stop you, did you? You made bold, hard decisions: you bought this hut, then you went off and travelled the world. The rest of us stuck to well-carved paths – university, careers – as we didn’t know what else to do. But you were out there doing things your own way, being brave. Then you fell pregnant with Marley – and look how you handled that. You didn’t take an easy route. You had him on your own – and were an incredible, inspiring mother. Sarah and I often talked about how naturally it came to you, how both our boys adored you. And then this was thrown at you – losing Marley. God, I wish so much it hadn’t happened, because Marley was just … such a wonderful, special boy.’ I could hear the smile in his voice as he said, ‘I still think of the day the two of them made those seaweed scarecrows. What did they call them?’

  ‘Scare-gulls.’ Joe had paid them a pound each to keep the gulls off his boat for the morning. The boys had covered themselves in seaweed, and prowled the deck like sea monsters, terrifying the gulls – and probably making far more mess than any birds would have done.

  ‘His imagination, Isla! Wasn’t it incredible? I was sure he’d be a writer one day, or a director of arthouse-type films.’ I heard him draw a deep breath. ‘It’s bullshit that he’s been taken so young. It’s bullshit tha
t you have to live with that pain – but Isla, you’re doing well. Truly, I mean that, you are. You’re still here – still sitting in this bay, not hiding away from it. You’re working, you’ve got this hut, you—’

  ‘But I’m sad, Nick. All the time.’ I didn’t have the words to explain it – the hollowness, the sense of something being permanently off-balance inside me. ‘I don’t feel like me any more.’

  Nick’s fingers reached for mine, interlacing in the familiar way they used to. ‘You’re still you, Isla. I promise.’

  I looked down at our entwined hands. He’d always had beautiful hands. Long and well proportioned. ‘Who is that, though?’ I whispered.

  ‘It’s the girl in the sherbet lemon yellow beach hut who looks life square in the eye and doesn’t turn away.’ He squeezed my hand tight.

  It would be so easy to lean into him, to breathe in his familiar smell of soap and aftershave, to let my head rest against his chest. I wanted it. I wanted to sink into him and let him hold me, let him take care of me.

  We stayed there with our fingers locked together until there was the lightest vibration in the sand, a slight disturbance in the air. I knew without looking up that it was Sarah. I slipped my hand out of Nick’s, sliding it through the cool sand to my side.

  ‘This,’ Sarah said, three weeks later, walking into my beach hut and slapping a brochure on the coffee table, ‘is where you’re going.’ She stood, hands on hips, with a slightly manic grin on her face. Was she nervous? Excited?

  I put down my coffee and picked up the brochure. It had an image of two towering granite peaks overlooking a white-tipped mountain range. Patagonia in southern Chile. I’d been talking about going there for years – ever since I’d spent an evening with friends of Joe and Binks who’d told me rich tales about a summer of hiking there. They’d described the desolate beauty with such vividness that I’d promised myself that – one day – I’d walk in those mountains, too.

  ‘I’ve booked it,’ Sarah said, flipping over the brochure to where there was a plane ticket paper-clipped to the back.

  ‘You’ve done what?’

  ‘You heard.’

  ‘But I can’t afford it—’

  She waved a hand through the air. ‘It’s a gift.’

  ‘I couldn’t—’

  ‘Your flight leaves in a month. That gives you four weeks to strop about and tell me you’re not going, you can’t go, you can’t take the time off work (which, by the way, you can: it falls in the school holidays). It gives you time to ring me up in a panic about what to pack, to tell me you’ve decided you won’t accept the ticket after all, and to worry that you won’t be fit enough to manage the hiking. And then, in exactly one month’s time, when I drop you at the airport, you’ll realize that you have no choice and you’ll go anyway. And enjoy it.’

  I hesitated. ‘The dates … what about—’

  ‘You’ll be back here for the anniversary,’ she said, sitting down beside me. ‘Your flight lands two days before.’

  Could I do this? Go to Chile? It was so generous of them both. I could imagine them talking together, concocting the plan. I pictured Nick telling Sarah about our conversation around the beach fire a few weeks ago – and Sarah coming up with the idea of Chile. She’s always wanted to go. At nineteen I wouldn’t have needed anyone to buy me a plane ticket, make the plans for me. I would’ve just gone.

  I remembered Nick’s words, You’re the girl in the sherbet lemon yellow beach hut who looks life square in the eye and doesn’t turn away.

  Sarah took both my hands in hers, squeezing them tightly. ‘Isla, please. Say you’ll go.’

  Sarah had been right, I thought, six weeks later, as I stood in front of a looming meltwater lake, with the sun hitting my face. Completely, utterly and annoyingly right.

  I absorbed the view, breathing in crisp mountain air. I could hear the crunch of hiking boots against earth as the rest of the group carried on, but I wanted a moment on my own. The lake was milky with sediment, hunks of melting ice glistening in the midday sun. It was a stark sort of beauty, raw and imposing.

  I slipped off my pack and crouched to the ground, the footsteps of the group fading. There were just five of us, including our Danish trek leader, Ole, who wore his thin blond hair in a topknot so you could see the tattoo of a mountain lion at the base of his neck. We camped together, ate together and hiked together – and yet I didn’t feel crowded, each of us happy to carve out moments alone in our days. At night I shared a tent with a Frenchwoman, Tabeth, who worked at an international school in Santiago and used her holidays to explore, camp and hike. She was ten years older than me – divorced, fit, and full of an infectious amount of energy.

  ‘Thank you,’ I whispered into the still air, thinking of Sarah and Nick. They’d done this for me.

  In the past, when Nick was working, Sarah, Jacob, Marley and I used to be an inseparable little foursome – our perfectly balanced square of two mothers and two sons. We would take it in turns to go crabbing with the boys, giving the other a chance to sit down with a book; we had four hands between us to apply sun cream or prepare a quick lunch for our hungry wolves; we could team up and play beach football, the boys squealing with delight and outrage at our crooked tactics.

  But when Marley died, one side of our square disappeared and the rest of us didn’t know how to hang together. When I went next door to Sarah’s hut, Jacob no longer jumped excitedly to his feet, ready to play; when Sarah would help wrestle a shivering Jacob from his wetsuit, I would just stand on the sidelines; when Nick arrived from work, he’d no longer find another family bustling about in his beach hut sharing stories of their day – but just me, wretched and lonely, worrying I was in the way.

  I tried to retreat from them, give them space as a family – but Sarah wouldn’t have it. I’d tell her that I wouldn’t be joining them for a barbecue, so she’d plonk the barbecue on my deck and light it there. In truth, I needed Sarah. I needed her bossiness, her interference, her relentless refusal to let me be swallowed by grief. She made sure I ate, washed, slept, paid my bills, kept up my work. On the worst nights she slept in my bed alongside me. She couldn’t have wanted that role, not really. Every moment spent looking after me was a moment away from her family.

  Standing before the meltwater lake, I found myself remembering the way she’d slapped down the brochure of Chile, the plane ticket attached to the back, a strained smile on her face. Was she nervous that I’d say no? Or was there another reason? The spiked tip of a doubt entered my thoughts, scratching at the moment.

  I shook my head sharply, pushing away the ungrateful thought. Sarah had done this for me – that was reason enough. I pulled on my pack and jogged to catch up the others.

  28. SARAH

  DAY SIX, 12.30 P.M.

  I am gazing at my half-drunk mug of coffee when PC Roam and PC Evans arrive unannounced.

  A wave of dread rises in my chest. I scramble to my feet, sloshing cold coffee on the floor. ‘What’s happened?’

  ‘No news,’ PC Evans says, holding up his narrow palms, as if to show he comes in peace.

  ‘Shed any light on Jacob’s love letter?’ I ask hopefully. I’ve already quizzed Luke about it, but he was totally stumped, telling us that Jacob never talked to him about anyone except for Caz.

  ‘None as yet. Actually, we were hoping to speak with your husband.’

  ‘Nick? He’s in town. Picking up a gas bottle. I doubt he’ll be back for another hour.’

  A look passes between the officers.

  I can feel my heart rate quickening. ‘Please. If you’ve got something to say, just say it.’

  PC Evans asks, ‘The night Jacob disappeared, do you know where your husband was?’

  ‘Yes, he drove to Bristol. He had a pitch the next morning, so he stayed over. At the Miramar Hotel, I think.’

  ‘Do you remember what time he left the sandbank?’

  I hear myself sigh. We’ve been through all of this. ‘He left Jacob’s barb
ecue about six thirty, maybe seven, then drove to the hotel.’

  ‘And did he stop anywhere on the way?’

  ‘No. He went straight there. He wanted to run through the pitch – then get an early night.’ I remember how strained he’d looked all weekend, his focus drifting away from the celebrations, lost to work.

  ‘The hotel have told us that your husband didn’t check in until one thirty in the morning.’

  I shake my head. ‘The drive would only have taken a couple of hours.’

  ‘Perhaps he stopped somewhere.’

  ‘Stopped? But where?’

  PC Evans says, ‘That’s what we want to find out.’

  We hear Nick at the back of the hut, heaving the new gas bottle into position. There’s a clank of metal, a loud curse, then the shifting of objects. I picture him leaning over the bottle trying to muscle it into the tight space. There’s another curse, and then finally the clunking of the wooden locker shutting. I want to tell the police officers, My husband never swears at Jacob. It’s DIY. He has a volatile relationship with it.

  When Nick finally walks in, there’s a sheen of sweat across his forehead. ‘It took me—’

  He stops short when he sees the two police officers sitting on the sofa opposite me, empty glasses of water in front of them.

  I watch him wipe his forehead with the back of his hand. He must notice the way we are all staring at him, expectant. ‘What is it?’ He turns to me. ‘Has something happened?’

  PC Evans is blank-faced as he says, ‘We’d like to know where you were on the evening that Jacob disappeared.’

  I watch Nick’s expression. It doesn’t falter. ‘I’ve already told you.’

  ‘They checked, Nick. You didn’t arrive at the hotel until one thirty.’ My arms fold across my body. ‘You left here at six thirty.’

  He presses his lips together, his gaze shifting to the left. It’s what he does when he’s trying to think himself out of a situation.

  ‘So where the fuck were you?’

  Nick stares at me in amazement. I almost never swear.